Norton for Mac

[JPMacUser]

Each time I run a scan on my computer, Norton freezes after scanning 699,000 files with about 23,000 more files to scan before completion. Would someone please help!!!! This is absolutely frustrating.

[Lee_G · Accepted solution]

One thing to try is to disable scanning compressed files.  There are two locations for this preference.

For manual and scheduled scans, in the Status and Scanning tab (main window of NAV) there is a Preferences button about 2/3 down, toward the right.

For auto-disk and auto-file scans, go to the Automatic Protection tab, then select "Configure" under the Auto-Protect settings.  The compressed file setting is under the General tab in the sheet that appears.

If it successfully scans in this case, you can try to scan subsets of your disk to isolate which compressed file is causing problems.  If disabling this feature doesn't help, let me know and I'll help with some other diagnostics.

[JPMacUser]

Thanks for your response! I will try this and get back with you. I've noticed that it doesn't "get stuck" on compressed files, only with iTunes (previously it was yahoo messenger but I deleted it last night).  Nonetheless I will try disable scanning the compressed files.

[JPMacUser]

Lee - your suggestion worked, thanks! Just an FYI why would compressed files cause the virus scan to stall?

[Lee_G]

It sounds like there may be a corrupted archive.  Some archives just take a long time to expand, but if it was hanging indefinitely then you can check for crash reports in the Console app (under /Applications/Utilities).  What can happen is the underlying scanner (SymAVScanDaemon) crashing on a corrupt .sitx or .sit file.  If you do find a crash reporter log, you can attach it to your response.

[otool]

I turned off scanning of compressed files but is that leaving me vulnerable to any viruses in the compressed files I didn't scan? And how do I ever just scan the compressed files only?

[Lee_G]

You will still be protected from any malicious files inside archives, at the time they are expanded (assuming you haven't disabled the Auto File Scan feature).

There isn't a setting to allow scanning compressed files only.  If you want to determine the file or files causing the problem, I would suggest scanning subsets of your disks to narrow in on the problem files.  This can be a little time-consuming, I realize.  You could also try to isolate any Stuffit files (.sit or .sitx) because they are ones we have typically had issues with.

Also, did you check in Console for any crash reports?  They probably won't help isolate the specific file, but could tell us if the Stuffit engine is involved.

[Lee_G]

I realized I was a little vague when I mentioned the process of narrowing down the problem files. I should have noted that you would want to re-enable compressed file scanning in this case, so you would see which parts of the disk had problems.

[RWZ]

I have had a similar problem, but NAVfM hangs on scanning an archive that isn't there! I have had to use Activity Monitor to stop the scan.

When it hung the first time, I deleted the offending archive, but NAVfM continues to hang on the same archive. I can't locate any other file with the same name using Find File and by visually scanning possible locations, including Applications Support and Preferences in the two Libraries, or in any of my download folders for Firefox and Safari or in the Entourage downloads folder, which I also cleared just for completeness.

I suspect either there is a "hidden" version of the file somewhere obscure or their is a log file that noted that the scan was incomplete the first time I had to quit the scan agent, and so NAVfM is still trying to complete the scan on a non-existent file.

Any suggestions?

[Lee_G]

Hopefully this is a silly question, but just in case -- can I assume the trash has been emptied since you deleted the archive?

If so, I'm not sure why that would happen.  NAV shouldn't try to scan a non-existent file just because it tried previously.  Do you have any crash logs?